I
only know you by books. Typical sovereign of "the lights century", you
also were somewhat paternalistic in your government. You were
called "mother" of all your lands; but, apparently, what really
worried you was that your people were obedient citizens of the Empress.

It
is not necessary to be surprised; not even a queen can be asked to be prophetically
ahead of her time. Anyway, in the lot of
sovereigns of the time, you play the best part : Director of the National Orchestra, without the pretension of playing all the instruments!

Much
better you coped as wife and mother. A husband, loved in life and
sincerely mourned after his death (even knowing he had betrayed you with
other favourites). "Crystal house" in which the citizens could watch the
impeccable customs of their sovereign. Sixteen children, between them the famous Joseph
II called, by your
neighbour King of Prusia, "King-Sexton", and the unfortunate Marie
Antoniette, first Princess, later Queen of France.

It
is to this last one to whom, with mother and woman sensitivity, you wrote letters,
that are still today kept, regarding the way of dressing.

In
Paris, there are whisperings that the Princess does not take care of her
elegance. You hear that in Vienna and immediately you take the pen, admonishing
her: "I was said that you dress badly and that your ladies do not
dare to tell you that".

Already
Queen, Marie Antoniette exceeds in the opposite sense, and she sends you a
portrait of her in which she wears a monumental cataphalque made of
fruits, flowers, feathers and a good ten meters of cloth on
her head. And
you, writing her again: "I don' t think the sovereign of a great nation must dress
like that. It is necessary to follow the fashion, but without
exaggerating. A graceful queen doesn' t need all these extravagances
on the head!"

Here
it is a wise maxim: woman' s beauty juts out without needing so many extravagances.

***

Majesty,
could
you believe it? There is a colleague of mine, a Bishop, who still seems more
understanding than you. Saint Francis of Sales is really full of smiling
indulgence for the small insurmountable human weaknesses, that impel specially women to look for and change
decorations, hairdos and dresses; he shows as tolerant, particularly, with the graceful elegance of the young
women. "These ones - he writes - feel like something innate the need to please
others". And he continues: "It is allowed for them to please many, as
long as they do it with the only purpose of winning over one through marriage".

As
a Bishop, he was called to moderate the zeal of the Baroness of Chantal, who
set a too much austere surveillance around her daughters' dress, and he writes
her: "What do you want? It is necessary the girls can also be a
little pretty". But when he takes part he knows how to repress with
sweetness the small (then they were small) audacities of the young women of his
family: one day, when Frances of Rabutin appeared a little bit too much low-necked
before him, he, smiling, offered her: safety pins!

The
same moderation regarding men' s and ladies' fashion. Mrs.
Charmoisy has
a
young son who feels badly because all his friends "sont beaucoup mieux que
lui", that is to say, they dress better
that him. This is not good, the Saint writes, because, "when one lives in the
world, it is necessary to follow world laws in all that it is
not a sin". Mrs. Le Blanc de Mions has, on the contrary, a scruple:
will she be able, being so devotee, to powder her hair according to the fashion?" For
goodness sake, Francis answers, she powders herself hardiment
(audaciously) her head: also the pheasants clean their feathers!".

Francis
of Sales wanted, when writing like that, to give sensible Christian advices, leaving to
the devotee life all its roses without removing any thorn. But he was taken badly, Majesty. The great Bossuet wrote
about him that in that way he did
not do more than "to place cushions under the sinners' elbows". A monk even preached from the
pulpit against The Introduction to
the devotee life, book in which the Saint had developed the concepts we have
already mentioned before; at the end of the sermon, he was made him bring a
lighted candle with great
solemnity, he took the book out of the sleeve and set it fire, spreading the ashes
everywhere.

***

Majesty,
it is necessary to make clear that I do not share that monk' s opinion. I am with
you and Francis of Sales in the moderate and right position of whom understands
and encourages all that is healthily beautiful, even in fashion.

But I am
also with you when condemning eccentricities. And, well, if there are
eccentricities nowadays! In dressing and regarding that: expenses, behaviour,
amusements. And I am not only speaking about the beach and about the way
in which some people use to visit it.

Your
Marie Antoniette wore ten meters of cloth on her head, while other meters of it
were distributed between the dress and the tail. Now it happens all the contrary: there
are women who are hardly covered and they are walking like that everywhere,
trying to enter the churches in that way.

In
your Court, Peter Metastasio, who moved in Gentlemen circles with wig and
powdered ladies, composed some melodramas. In one of them, he wrote:

It
is the lovers'
faith

like
the phoenix
bird:

that
it exists, it is said by all,

where
is it? Nobody knows.

It
is the highest he has dared to say, sentimentally speaking. Now they dare to
everything; in dressing, singing, writing, in photography, in the way to behave.

(My mother used to take me to the opera or to the comedy, and she booked a cover
theater box, and she spent a lot of money on it. She tried to go where she knew that good comedies
were played, which she could trust on, and she came with us, and we had fun.
Sometimes, we went for a walk: a little to the Liston, a
little to the astrologers' square, to the puppets', and a couple of times to the
market stalls.
When we stayed at home, we always had our social gathering there. Relatives, friends and some
other young man came: but there
was no danger there").

And
now? It so happened that good family daughters are absent for whole days. Where
are they going to? With "their" boyfriend, alone in the car, alone in the hotel with
him, on the ways of the
world.

Sometimes
it happens an invitation is received for a dance and
it is written on the card
the abbreviation WBE (without bothered escorts, that is to say, without the
parents).

Also
sometimes, we can read in the newspapers that the employees of certain companies
reduce remarkably the rate and quality of the production because they devote themselves to
long "meditations" on the Lilliputian size of the
skirts or underclothes of their fellow women. Or we also read that a certain
government, to avoid the increase of traffic accidents, warns the drivers with
advertisements so that they can' t let them distract by girls in miniskirt they see
through the rear view mirror or through the window.

Majesty,
you have written the right word: woman doesn' t need much to please others. It
is to know what kind of people they want to please to and
with which purpose. To please all? It is not anything bad; what is bad
can be wanting to please in a certain way. I think, however,
that a woman must try to please, first of all, her parents, brothers, sisters
and, mainly, her husband, the man who will
choose her as his wife and he will be the father of her children.

However,
all these ones wish that woman can be elegant and beautiful, but in a setting of
modesty that makes her be still more beautiful and morally attractive.

*
* *

Majesty,
forgive me if I have been sincere and have opened my heart to you, as you approve
these ideas. It is not, certainly, that there is a lack of women today who can appreciate
them. But there are some of them who consider them as old fashioned and obsolete.
You know,
on the contrary, that they cannot be waived and are always fresh, because they
reflect the thought of God, that made St. Paul write: "Women, dress with
honour, decorated with modesty and shame".

July
1971

*
MARY
THERESA OF HAPSBURG,
(1717-1780),
Empress of Austria from 1740. Illustrated " sovereign "
governed in a paternalistic way. She was mother and exemplary wife. She wrote to her daughter,
Marie Antoniette, Queen of France, with woman and mother sensitivity, some
letters that still today we keep on the way of dressing.